[October 04, 2016] |
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Nine Teams Propose XPRIZE Competitions to Address Grand Challenges at Visioneers Summit
XPRIZE,
the global leader in incentive prize competitions, this weekend convened
nine international teams to share their prize concepts across a
portfolio of Grand Challenge areas at the Visioneers 2016 Summit,
presented by the Roddenberry Foundation.
A group of 250 mentors, composed of prominent corporate and political
leaders, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, artists, technologists and
scientists, evaluated and critiqued each of the nine XPRIZE proposals
over the course of the two-and-a-half-day Summit. The Visioneers teams
worked on their proposals for five months, culminating with the Summit
used to evolve the concepts from "good to great".
"With this Summit model, we have gamified and crowdsourced aspects of
our internal prize development process by challenging teams to develop
their proposals for how they would leverage the XPRIZE model to solve a
Grand Challenge," said Marcus Shingles, CEO of XPRIZE. "It was a
significant success as a result of the tremendous efforts of many, and
after a collaborative weekend of feedback, mentorship, and critique, we
have ultimately defined a powerful portfolio of XPRIZE concepts. We are
particularly proud of all nine teams; they were the 'rock stars' of the
Summit and the type of passionate bold innovators and exponential
thinkers that XPRIZE appreciates most."
"We applaud all nine teams for their passion, persistence, courage and
vision," added Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, executive chairman and founder of
XPRIZE. "Each team's concept not only addressed one of the world's Grand
Challenges, but also was in line with Gene Roddenberry's worldview, in
honor of the 50th anniversary of Star Trek."
Following are the top three teams certified as "Ready for Launch":
Conquering Cancer XPRIZE, sponsored by Deloitte (News - Alert) Led by
Deloitte and Dr. Daniel Kraft, the team is focused on "conquering
cancer," with the goal of "eliminating preventable cancer deaths"
through early detection. Today, there are 21st century treatments for
cancer, but 20th century cancer detection. Imagine the reduction in
deaths and suffering if everyone, everywhere had access to 21st century
cancer detection - that's how we can conquer cancer. The winning team of
the Conquering Cancer XPRIZE will develop a global solution designed to
rapidly, affordably, and accurately detect cancer early where
intervention can reduce human suffering. Dr. Kraft is a
physician-scientist, inventor, entrepreneur and innovator, who is also
the founder and Executive Director of Exponential Medicine at
Singularity University.
Avatar XPRIZE, sponsored by ANA Led by Dr.2 Harry
Kloor, Ph.D, Ph.D, the team is focused on creating avatars that would
enable people's consciousness to be transported instantaneously across
the globe and beyond. The global impact of having access to working
avatars would be huge; they would revolutionize modern society and
enable the free an immediate passage of skilled workers to where they
are most needed, possibilities include providing medical care, education
and rescue missions, regardless of distance, borders or dangerous site
conditions. Dr. Kloor is an American scientist, film producer, director,
writer and entrepreneur, with experience in robotics, augmented reality,
virtual reality, haptic technologies, machine-brain technologies and
telepresence.
Cat's Iron Will ALS XPRIZE, sponsored by Caterpillar Inc. Led
by Dr. Melanie Leitner, the team focused on "removing ALS patients from
death row" by improving quality of life for those fighting the disease
through assistive devices - devices that would go on to aid hundreds of
millions of others with diseases, injured veterans, those with physical
disabilities as well as the frail and aging population. Through the
development of novel assistive technologies, the team envisions a world
where ALS is no longer a death sentence or even a prison, but where ALS
patients and others living with physical disabilities can live their
lives independently. Dr. Leitner, founder of Accelerating NeuroVentures,
is a consultant who advises companies, foundations, and investors
interested in translating neuroscience discoveries into breakthroughs
for patients.
The following six teams also shared concepts for potential XPRIZE
competitions: (listed in alphabetical order)
Affordable Housing XPRIZE, sponsored by Bosa Properties with Leonard
Brody Led by Yaron Schwarcz, the team focused on "ensuring
everyone has direct access to acceptable and affordable housing," with
the goal of "sparking exponential leaps in construction technologies,
speed and safety - ultimately decreasing both the time and cost it takes
to make affordable housing available." Schwarcz, founder and CEO of
Tridom: Robotic Construction, is a consultant and thought leader for
innovation and accelerating technologies.
Desalination XPRIZE, sponsored by National Research Foundation
Singapore Led by Alisa Ferguson, the team focused on "bringing
water abundance to communities around the globe," with the goal of
"making the world's water sources accessible and sustainable-for human
development, economic growth, and the health and biodiversity of the
planet." Ferguson has spent more than 15 years working at the
intersection of technology, business and policy to force strategies that
accelerate innovation.
Experiential Empathy XPRIZE, sponsored by The Roddenberry Foundation The
team focused on "experiential empathy" with the goal of challenging
teams to develop innovative technologies for teaching empathy and
compassion as well as scaling the untapped and exponentially unifying
power of human empathy and compassion to address global challenges.
Supported by Dr. Dan Cordaro, Dr. Alexandra Ivanovitch, and Fuji Lai,
the team is exploring ways to leverage exponential technologies to
democratize the teaching and learning of empathy and compassion,
critical skills in our increasingly connected and yet divided world.
Healthy & Safe Homes XPRIZE, sponsored by Lowe's Led by
Eric Corey Freed, the team focused on "healthy and safe homes," with the
goal of "seeking buildings that are alive and adapt to make us well."
Corey Freed has dedicated his career to sustainable, healthy buildings
and has published numerous books on the subject. He is also a frequent
guest commentator on CNN, FoxNews, PBS and HGTV.
Nutritious Abundance XPRIZE, sponsored by the Nutritious Abundance
Collaborative Led by Ignacio Peña, the team focused on "access
to a healthy diet for all" with the goal of "developing sustainable
solutions that offer our expanding population access to affordable and
freshly grown nutritious food." Peña is a social entrepreneur, innovator
and strategist trained at Wharton-Lauder who is dedicated to catalyzing
abundance, inclusion and regeneration through high impact ideas,
initiatives and startups.
Safe Drinking Water XPRIZE, sponsored by Brita® Led
by William Sarni, the team focused on "democratizing access to safe
drinking water and data" with the goal of providing "universal access to
safe drinking water, always." Sarni, a managing director at Deloitte
Consulting LLP, is an internationally recognized thought leader on water
strategy and water technology innovation.
For more information, visit www.xprize.org/visioneers.
About XPRIZE XPRIZE, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is the global
leader in designing and implementing innovative competition models to
solve the world's grandest challenges. XPRIZE utilizes a unique
combination of gamification, crowd-sourcing, incentive prize theory, and
exponential technologies as a formula to make 10x (vs. 10%) impact in
the grand challenge domains facing our world. XPRIZE's philosophy is
that-under the right circumstances- igniting rapid experimentation from
a variety of diverse lenses is the most efficient and effective method
to driving exponential impact and solutions to grand challenges. Active
competitions include the $30M Google (News - Alert) Lunar XPRIZE, the $20M NRG COSIA
Carbon XPRIZE, the $15M Global Learning XPRIZE, the $10M Qualcomm
Tricorder XPRIZE, the $7M Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, the $7M Adult
Literacy XPRIZE, the $7M Barbara Bush Foundation Adult Literacy XPRIZE
and the $5M IBM (News - Alert) Watson AI XPRIZE. For more information, visit www.xprize.org.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161004005548/en/
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